CEA in a new light

A new impetus for indoor farming comes from Germany. Würth Elektronik introduces its ‘Breeding Station’, which enables the cultivation of seedlings and cuttings under optimal, controlled conditions. Together with its cooperation partners, the electronic component manufacturer is shaping a vision of production clusters combining industry and agriculture.

Alexander Gerfer, CTO of Würth Elektronik eiSos, personally demonstrated the efficiency of the Breeding Station at the DLD (Digital Life Design) 2025 digital conference. The cultivation station uses plant-optimised LEDs generating so little waste heat that he could touch them without hesitation. The innovative lighting technology is not only significantly more energy-efficient than the sodium vapour lamps widely used in the past, but also offers a considerably longer service life. Plant-optimised LED lighting allows for virtually any light mix and individually tailored day-night cycles to ensure the ideal DLI (Daily Light Integral) value. The DLI value is a measure of the total amount of photosynthetically active radiation. Only the wavelengths that the plant needs and can use in its respective growth phase are generated.

Plant characteristics become controllable

Young plants thrive under artificial lighting. Their microclimate can be individually adjusted: temperature, humidity and CO₂ concentration can be optimised for the respective plant. The Breeding Station was developed in collaboration with the German company Bürkert Fluid Control Systems and significantly increases cultivation yield. “With our horticulture LEDs, we can generate almost any light colour and use specific lighting sequences or light formulas to specifically control certain plant characteristics,” explains Alexander Gerfer.

Knowledge transfer – out of responsibility

The fact that Würth Elektronik researches and develops many of these light formulas in-house is not one of the first things you might have expected from an electronic component manufacturer. But the CTO explains: “Conducting our own fundamental research is part of our success strategy. We support our customers with knowledge transfer. This allows us to enable innovation, even in small R&D departments. For us, it's not just about revenue and market share. We’re aware of our responsibility for our environment and strive to proactively address the challenges of our time.”

And there’s certainly no shortage of challenges: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, a projected world population of around ten billion will require a 50% increase in global agricultural production by 2050. However, the amount of arable land has decreased over the past decades – from almost 40% of the world’s land area in 1991 to just 37% in 2018.

CEA: better food, higher land productivity

Climate change, unstable supply chains, and rising CO2 prices are already pushing traditional agriculture to its limits. That’s why complementary methods of food production are growing in importance. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is becoming increasingly important in this respect: it enables fruit and vegetables to be produced near the consumer in closed systems, regardless of the season. The water required for growth is enriched with nutrients, treated, and reused in closed-loop systems. As no harmful organisms are introduced, there is hardly any need for pesticides. What’s more, the productivity per footprint area can be significantly increased through vertical farming – something Würth Elektronik’s Breeding Station actively supports. Studies show that intelligent lighting control, for example, can significantly promote root development. The higher cultivation yield makes an important contribution to profitable production in indoor farms.

Vegetation-specific LEDs developed by Würth Elektronik eiSos are also used to promote crop growth through to harvest maturity. They enable plant processes to be controlled via light formulas. This also allows for optimal growth as well as facilitating food production on demand, as ripening or flowering can be triggered or suppressed as required. In addition, plants can be grown and harvested in multiple cycles throughout the year.

Holistic strategies raise efficiency

Indoor farming not only requires energy for lighting, greenhouses need to be heated during the winter, especially at our latitude. This is still largely achieved with fossil fuels, which not only entails additional costs: ‘winter tomatoes’ grown in German greenhouses – a typical example of conventional cultivation methods – generate a carbon footprint of 2.9kg of CO2 equivalent per kg of food.

“True to our mission of creating together, we’re already thinking one step ahead,” says Alexander Gerfer. “If we want to make local CEA production commercially and ecologically successful, we need to think holistically and work across industry boundaries.”

Production clusters combining industry and agriculture

Together with the startup Horizon Growers, which has already implemented large indoor farms in the United Arab Emirates, Würth Elektronik presented a completely new perspective at DLD 2025: Food production and industry are combined in new production clusters. CEA facilities directly connected to industrial plants with high CO2 emissions, such as paper mills, can thus act as CO2 sinks.

Plants need CO2, and the concentration of this greenhouse gas is artificially increased in greenhouses to accelerate growth. Moreover, industrial waste heat can be used to regulate the climate within the farm. The energy mix is augmented by photovoltaics and wind power. This synergistic approach, combined with energy-efficient local direct current grids, enables CO2-neutral plant production at industrial sites. At the same time, the farm stabilizes the power grid through intelligent load management, synchronised with the production of any renewable energy sources connected – a real win-win situation for all stakeholders as well as our environment.